David Friedrich Strauss's mythical interpretation of Jesus Christ

Life of Jesus, Critically Examined

Penned in the tumultuous year of 1835, during an era defined by dogmatic religious intolerance and institutionalized adherence to the edicts of the church, David Friedrich Strauss' The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined represents an astonishingly bold assault on the complacency of Christianity, one which compels readers to challenge their own conception of faith. A respected theologian with a philosophical yearning to comprehend the world around him, Strauss found himself torn at the tender age of twenty-three between his desire to live the pious life of a local pastor, and his increasing awareness to the writing of thinkers such as Schleiermacher and Hegel. His first foray into the realm of religious thought was "The Doctrine of the Restoration of All Things in Its Religious-Historical Significance," a doctoral dissertation written in 1831 which argued that "the restoration of all finite things to the creator, and the concomitant overcoming of the awareness of contradiction between finite and infinite spirit must be de-eschatologized."1 Following four years of intensive inner dialogue, the centuries-old conflict between the literal and mythical interpretation of Scripture which consumed Strauss was resolved with the publication of what is perhaps religion's most controversial tome, his seminal

1. Hodgson, xxi

The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined. The resulting exposition of historical criticism systematically dismantled the prevailing perception of Jesus Christ, lifting the shroud of divinity which for eighteen centuries had concealed his identity and conflated a man of his age into the Rock of Ages.

The central premise of Strauss' The Life of Jesus series, which wasrevised through multiple editions as the author continued to refine his philosophical vision, holds that the preponderance of study devoted to the Holy Bible is steeped in either a supernatural or naturalistic interpretation of the textual evidence. He furthered this notion by suggesting that mankind's acceptance of the Gospel accounts of Jesus are necessarily informed by "palpable misconceptions of the true nature of a mythus in a work on the mythology of the New Testament"2 which have been universally accepted and engrained within cultural belief systems. Pointedly proclaiming the fallacious nature of historical truth in an era of unreliable recordkeeping and largely oral tradition transmission, Strauss made the disquieting observation that "the more scanty the historical data, the greater was the scope for conjecture, and historical guesses and inferences of this description, formed in harmony with the Jewish-Christian tastes, may be called the philosophical, or rather, the dogmatical mythi of the early Christian Gospel."3 In doing so, he unwittingly opened a cloistered society's collective consciousness to the concept that Christ, though undoubtedly a flesh and blood figure who inspired a devoted following, may today be nothing more than a mythological figure akin to the Greek god Zeus.

2. Strauss, 61

3. Ibid, 58

In the second part of his remarkable three-volume magnum opus, Strauss harnesses the analytical power of Hegelian dialectic, which emphasizes the study of a text's phenomenological and hermeneutical properties, to assiduously deconstruct the parables concerning Jesus' actual activities and actions. Through an admirably close reading and comparison of the various Gospel accounts, Strauss holds the relative truth of each in the light of one another's assertions of fact, inevitably encountering a series of crucial inconsistencies and outright deviations from what is purported to be sacred Scripture. In listing the multitude of discrepancies identified as important enough to cast doubt on the Holy Bible's ultimate accuracy, Strauss upholds the spirit of Hegelian dialectic by challenging his reader to consider the fact that "in the so-called books of Moses mention is made of his death and burial" before asking deviously "but who now supposes that this was written beforehand by Moses in the form of prophecy?"4 He then goes on to cite other instances of variation between a Gospel's heading and reality, showing that because "many of the Psalms bear the name of David which presuppose an acquaintance with miseries of the exile, and predictions are put into the mouth of Daniel, a Jew living at the time of the Babylonish captivity, which could not have been written before the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes,"5 the modern reader must consider the veracity of Scripture with a healthy level of legitimate skepticism.

Despite his supreme understanding of humanity from the clear vantage afforded by historical consideration, Strauss severely misjudged his own contemporary's potential revulsion to the radical nature of his work. Expressing his own expectations of a positive reception from

4. Ibid, 71

3. Massey, 79

historical evidence, leading to major reformations from within and a worldwide awakening to the possibility that Jesus himself not the divine son of God, but merely the convenient amalgamation of various tales, parables and teachings. Never before in human history had one person so clearly illuminated the illusions of religious tradition, and with the mythologizing of the Gospel accounts finally and firmly exposed, entire generations of Europeans were liberated from the shackles of dogmatic instruction. Today, scholars credit this revolution in religious thinking on the part of Strauss with his ability to lift "readers from submission to an exalted figure of the past and from the correlative stagnation of their own religious development (and) & #8230; raise their consciousness to a recognition of their own human potential as bearers of truth and meaning and as agents of historical change."9 For the modern reader, studying Strauss' perceptive proclamations two centuries after they were put to paper, the consequences of his work may not appear to be as momentous as previously stated, but our contemporary ability to judge religious doctrine on its own merits and express belief or disbelief accordingly is a direct result of Strauss and his quest to liberate the mind and soul from conscription. Without the historical analysis presented throughout The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined the world would still be bound to an outmoded and discredited mythological creation. Our morality, our spirituality, and our very humanity would be forever constrained by the false preaching of a church too afraid to scrutinize its own holy works.

9. Madges, 287